A Shameless Little Con

by Meli Raine

  Silas ignores me. I ignore him. We’re sitting three feet from each other.

  This is how people die from shame.

  “So many questions remain about the Bosworth affair. Why did Nolan Corning set up such a high-profile, extraordinarily violent scheme to bring down Harwell Bosworth? What were his motives, and why did he use an innocent young woman as the proxy for hurting the senator? How did Gainsborough, Asgarth, and Maisri drug Lindsay and, allegedly, Andrew Foster and get away with it? Why did Lindsay’s best friends from school turn on her in such a public, cold manner? Motive is always the key to solving any mystery, but in this web of deceit, untangling motives is like trying to find the head of a two-headed snake in a Gordian knot. Just when you think you’ve found it, you’re wrong. And it has a deadly bite.”

  Silas’s eyes dart sharply to look at me after that last line.

  There aren’t enough tears in the world right now to deal with his look.

  Shame has a deadly bite, too.

  It feels like Silas’s gaze.

  Chapter 4

  “Here we are, six months later, with fewer answers than we had at the beginning and more questions than ever. As the–”

  A few beeps from the radio, then a second of silence before a live broadcaster’s voice cuts in.

  “We interrupt this scheduled program with a breaking news alert. Jane Borokov narrowly escaped another attempt on her life as a firebomb–”

  Click.

  “Oh, sure. Now you turn off the radio?” I cry out, incredulous, shooting daggers with my eyes at the driver. “Turn it back on so I can hear!” I demand of him.

  “You have enough information. All they’re going to do is spin,” Silas interrupts.

  “You think I don’t know that?”

  “Then why listen?”

  “Because if I don’t know how they’re portraying me, how can I defend myself?”

  “You think there’s a way to defend yourself against the media machine?” His turn to be incredulous, the look on his face making me want to smack him.

  “Truth is an absolute defense.”

  His eye roll is epic.

  “Has it ever occurred to you that maybe, just maybe, if you thought it through, there might be a completely different angle on every part of this mess? That maybe I’m telling the truth?” I taunt him. That’s how this feels–like nothing but a nasty game. The push-pull of wanting him to treat me like a human being and wanting to lash out and hurt him is infuriating, but it is better than sitting here and taking his negativity like a passive little doormat.

  “Of course I have.”

  “And you’ve rejected that. Completely.”

  “Yes.”

  “Then you’re really bad at your job, Silas,” I say, letting all the bitterness and contempt come through my voice.

  “You’ve wounded me, Jane.” Turns out he can do contempt, too. Better than I can.

  “I mean it. Anyone whose job is to protect people can’t be such an absolutist. It makes you weak. Gives other people an easy shot at you.”

  “‘Other people’? Do you mean people like you?”

  “No. I mean people like the ones who attacked Lindsay.”

  “Right. People like you.”

  I shake my head slowly, the waves of panic flowing through me, giving in to them. Letting them come because what choice do I have?

  And guess what?

  You can feel all of that panic, let the anxiety overwhelm you, nearly black out from the incongruity of being shamed, driving toward an unknown destination where you have no control–

  –and still stand up for yourself.

  “I have nothing left to lose, Silas. My mom is dead, my reputation’s beyond salvageable, I don’t have a job or a place to live, and everywhere I go someone’s trying to kill me. Even my online world is nothing but garbage and threats from shitlords. So, as a simple thought exercise, can you try? You’re protecting me. Someone assigned you to me. Give me the courtesy of doing your job completely. If I’m stuck with you–and I know I am–I, at least, want you to do your best.”

  I’ve struck a nerve.

  Finally.

  “You think you can tell me how to do my job?”

  “Someone needs to. Looks like Drew’s not doing it.”

  “Don’t you dare criticize Drew,” he growls, sitting up taller, curling toward me like a predator.

  “I absolutely will dare. No one is immune from being analyzed. No one is so perfect that they don’t have flaws. No one is one hundred percent bad or one hundred percent good. We’re all a mixture.”

  He smirks. “Like fifty shades of grey?”

  “You brought up sex. Not me.”

  His eyes flash with a smoldering look, combing up and down my body.

  “Who said anything about sex?”

  “You did. Mentioning the title of the biggest-selling erotic romance novel in history implies it.”

  The tips of his ears turn pink, the only hint that talking about sex is having a physical effect on him. I try so hard not to squirm.

  I can’t show him it’s having an effect on me, either.

  “How did we get from absolutism to sex?” I say, trying to cut the tension, trying to scramble backwards from the arousal that floods me suddenly. Dormant parts of my mind and body call themselves to attention, making it damn near impossible to hold onto the all the shaking parts of me that were working together just long enough to defend myself.

  “I am not an absolutist,” he says, carefully avoiding the second half of my question. “I take in every single detail.” His eyes sure do, looking me over.

  “And yet you take all that information, form a judgment, and then religiously follow it.”

  “No. In the face of new evidence, I’ll change my approach.”

  “I’ve given you new evidence!”

  “No, you haven’t, Jane. You’ve protested. You’ve proclaimed. You’ve pleaded and you’ve bitched. You’ve lawyered up and you’ve gone silent. You’ve done everything–everything–but give us new evidence.” He runs a shaking hand over the top of his head, his lips curling with anger, eyes staring ahead, avoiding me.

  “I–”

  He jolts, digging into his pocket to pull out a phone. Before he turns the screen away from me, I see his backdrop. It’s of a small dark-haired child on a beach, the picture taken from behind, her skirt flying around her legs, the little girl in motion, the blue skies over the green water idyllic.

  Does he have a child? Who is the little girl? As Silas reads his screen, his shoulders slump slightly–in defeat.

  What the hell is in that text he’s reading?

  He leans his elbow against the door, setting the phone face down on his thigh, his expression troubled. I want to ask him if he’s okay. I want to ask him about the little girl. I want to ask him so many questions.

  Most of all, I want to ask him to be kind to me.

  I need someone to be kind to me.

  Anyone.

  Because you can live for a very long time in isolation.

  But you can’t live among people for very long without needing kindness. It’s as essential as oxygen, as water, as food.

  While you might not technically die without kindness, the existence you’re left with is worse than dying.

  We turn down a familiar road. I realize I haven’t paid a bit of attention to where we’re going. I can feel Silas pull away from me as he ponders his personal cell phone, frowning. I scoot as far away from him as I can and lean my forehead against the bottom of the cool window glass, sighing.

  Firebomb.

  Silas saved me.

  He’s right.

  I should be grateful. I should be grateful because I should be dead right now, by all rights. Dead like my mother.

  Dead like John, Stellan, and Blaine.

  No, I was never part of their horrible, violent, evil plans. Ever.

  Not willingly, at least.

  But I am keeping secrets from everyone
. I have to. If I tell the truth, then people will die.

  Lying is the only way to arrange all the fractured pieces of this strange mess I’m in and feel like there is some semblance of a whole.

  Evidence? Silas wants me to produce evidence that will change his mind about me. I have that evidence. Or at least, I did. A long time ago, long before everything exploded.

  Here’s the problem: the same evidence that exonerates me, implicates me. After a while, it all blurs together. Who is good? Who is bad? Who has pure motives?

  As Silas sighs and puts his phone back in his pocket, the walkie-talkie squawks.

  “Get her to The Grove. Bosworth wants to talk to her.”

  Silas nods, as if Drew can see him.

  Wait a minute. He probably can. I’m sure this vehicle is under surveillance.

  Nothing I do isn’t being recorded. Nothing I do isn’t being watched. I cannot pee without assuming someone, somewhere, is documenting and observing, working to find the one tidbit of information that will give them a strategic advantage.

  I am nothing but someone’s leverage.

  I’m being summoned to The Grove, the home of Senator Harwell Bosworth and his wife, Monica. My mother was the senator’s right-hand woman for decades. She was fired in disgrace for handing their daughter Lindsay off to the same men who gang raped her four years before.

  The Grove is the last place on earth I want to visit.

  I have no choice, though. No say. If Senator Bosworth, a man who is running for president of the United States, wants an audience with me, he gets it.

  Without question.

  I can’t prepare myself. I can’t defend myself. The familiar steel-edged butterflies start to stir in my stomach. My mother worked for Harry–I can’t call him that in person, but in my mind, he’s Harry–for so many years. She lived for her job. Gave him her best years, rising up the ranks with him as he went from state office to national prominence. When Harry announced his run for president, she came close to quitting for reasons I never understood.

  Behind the scenes, my mother was devoted to Harry’s well-being. Not just his political career, but how he was as a person. As a man.

  And in the end, everyone thinks she betrayed him.

  Maybe that’s the lesson I need to take from all of this. I glance at Silas, who is a rigid, six-foot line of tension, his fingers absentmindedly twitching, his attention split.

  “Everything okay?” I ask, the words out before I can pull them back in. It’s a reflex. I care, apparently. I can’t help it.

  The look on his face overwhelms me. His brow is tight over judgmental eyes that are also disconcertingly capable of compassion. “I’m fine.”

  “I’m not. And neither are you. But if you need to lie, go ahead.”

  “I don’t need your permission, Jane.”

  “No, you don’t. I was just offering a little kindness. Whatever’s going on, I hope it gets better. You don’t look happy.”

  “What does happiness have to do with anything?”

  I laugh, the sound sharper than I intend. “That is an excellent question.” The words turn sour in my mouth.

  He stares at me. Hard. I can sense more than anger and contempt toward me. Dehumanizing someone you view as an enemy makes it easier to think of conflict as a chess game. Black and white, the only nuances those that help you strategically. Compassion is the first victim of absolutism.

  And if I am anything these days, it’s a victim.

  “Well, anyhow,” I say, deciding that I might as well give up on being believed and just be authentic. “I hope it all turns out fine.”

  He nods, staring straight ahead. Then he sighs. “It won’t.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Thank you.”

  We ride the rest of the way to The Grove in silence.

  A silence that is no longer empty.

  Chapter 5

  When the entire world seems to hate you, the framework of your life disappears, leaving you floating in an endless place where there is no edge, no boundary, no line.

  First I was fired from my job.

  Then I was evicted from my apartment.

  My credit cards and bank account were frozen because of investigations into criminal activity. I had to give up my phone when they took me into custody, even though technically I wasn’t arrested.

  Every electronic item in my apartment was taken by the feds.

  Later, when I finally got access to a computer, I tried to log into my email account.

  Wrong password.

  Facebook?

  Wrong password.

  Amazon?

  Wrong password.

  You get the idea.

  I owned my clothes, my personal belongings, and a little bit of furniture in my apartment. My original car was seized along with my computer and all the other items that could have plausibly–or not so plausibly–been used to commit a crime.

  And then the attacks began.

  One of the few mercies in those early days after John, Stellan, and Blaine kidnapped me and used me to get to Lindsay was that I didn’t have my electronics. While I’d been pissed when they were taken away and my accounts accessed, all my activity downloaded and combed over by investigators, it was a blessing.

  Because I never saw all the death threats. The messages urging me to kill myself. The rape promises.

  And worse.

  Oh, yes. There are worse things people can say to you. Especially when they do it with attached pictures, GIFs, and videos.

  It took about a week before Senator Bosworth, of all people, came to my rescue. He gave me money privately. Offered me a smartphone. I knew it was being tracked, but I didn’t care. It was literally a lifeline.

  I still couldn’t access my own accounts, but I could start new ones. New accounts that I made sure were scrubbed clean of any hint of activity that could get me in trouble.

  I had Senator Bosworth to thank for giving me some peace.

  The Grove is like something out of a documentary about the wealthy, a sprawling, oceanside estate that makes it very clear Senator Bosworth had money long before he rose to become a presidential candidate. I’ve been here hundreds of times since I was little. While my mother worked here, it was open to me. Lindsay and I forged a friendship in elementary school–a weird one, but a good one. How do you become best friends when your mother works for her father? The balance of power was awkward.

  We managed.

  Silas shakes his head slightly, as if ridding himself of unwanted thoughts, then turns to me. “This won’t be a typical meeting. Bosworth’s entire PR team is there.”

  “Again?” This isn’t the first time I’ve been forced to sit in the senator’s office and be talked about like I’m a potted plant. I don’t understand why they make me go to these meetings. I’m basically forced to sit through hours of being talked about like I’m a problem, and then I’m handed marching orders.

  It’s not a choice. It’s a blueprint.

  When we were still friends, Lindsay used to complain about being treated this way. I never understood.

  Now I do.

  More than I ever wanted to.

  “Yes. The firebombing complicates matters.”

  “You think?”

  He cracks, just a little, his mouth turning up with an aggrieved sigh. “You are a complicated woman, Jane.”

  “Me? I’m simple. It’s the rest of the world that makes me complicated.”

  He does a double take and drops the topic, turning away.

  What does that mean?

  We pull up to the back door, a modest side entrance off the south wing of the house that I know has more security than the president himself receives. After Lindsay’s kidnapping–which happened right here, on the helicopter pad behind us–The Grove went through massive lockdown, security tripled, the place more a fortress than a home.

  The SUV comes to a halt, the driver’s precision in pulling up between two thick sets of bushes not an accident.
It’s all carefully calibrated to provide cover, for the agents stationed around the grounds to be able to handle an attacker, a bomb, every move calculated to maximize the safety of the people they’re assigned to protect.

  The memory of Silas’s body against mine less than an hour ago as he shielded me from my car’s explosion floods my senses. It’s as if I can smell him again, feel his nose pressed into my neck, sense those big callused hands on my ribs, my shoulders, my head. I swoon, pausing as he waves to me to slide across the bench seat and exit the SUV on his side.

  He turns from solid to waves, my vision swimming, but I push through.

  I always push through.

  When I stand, I wobble, my legs like rubber bands. His hand goes to my elbow, holding tight, the other at the small of my back, assured and instinctive.

  “Are you okay?” he asks, mirroring my own words from a few moments ago back to me.

  “No. How about we stop asking each other that question?” I ask, catching his eye, trying to let him know I’m half joking but also coming from a place where I get it. I really do.

  “What do you suggest instead?” His hands move off my body, leaving me more unsure than before. The withdrawal of his touch is a disturbing sensation. Silas only held me steady for a few moments, yet it felt so good. So right.

  I need to stop doing this.

  I need to turn whatever I’m feeling off, because as I look up at him to answer, I see his mask is back on.

  Whatever I thought I just felt from him, I’m clearly wrong.

  He’s only doing his job.

  And right now his job is to deliver me straight into the middle of a hornet’s nest, without a suit.

  “Joe,” he says, nodding at one of the security people. He’s wearing mirrored sunglasses, my own image reflected back at me for a split second, just long enough to realize I look like a sooty, grass-stained mess.

  “Wait!” I cry out, unable to stop the impulse. My hands fly up to my hair, my right eyebrow, my cheek. I turn back to confirm what I saw in the mirrored glasses, seeking the SUV’s window.

  “What?” Silas asks, impassive.

  “Why didn’t you tell me I look like this?” Frantic, I touch my face. Part of my layered bangs rest against my eyebrow like a tangled piece of burnt yarn. A long green streak might as well be blush on my cheekbone, and when I look down at my right arm, I see more grass stains along the forearm.